Michael Strahan’s divorce and custody case is in the news lately and it is very interesting because it paints a picture of the talk show host that is very different from the gentleman he appears to be on television.

For example, in a recent article in the New York Post about Michael Strahan’s divorce and child custody case, the writer states that Mr Strahan regularly battered his wife. At first when I saw the word battered next to the former NFL star’s name, I did a double-take. “Battered”?? Michael Strahan battered someone?? His ex wife?? What?

Then I read more closely and realised that the lawyer for his exwife had used a violent verb specifically to paint a steretypical picture of a man like Michael Strahan. And it seemed a bit foul, to tell you the truth What the Post says the lawyer said was ” “He battered her financially with lawsuits. That’s how determined he is to not pay child support he agreed to 10 years ago.”

So it is not that he actually battered her. It is a metaphor, but a nasty one, I must say. It seemed oddly reptilian and cold-blooded on the part of the attorney who used that word. Low. Dirty. Nasty steretyping. Especially in this sensitive era of the “Me Too” movement. It was a way to cast Mr Strahan into the fray (even though she has offered no proof (but wait, if they dig hard enough they are bound to come up with something) and illicit maximum sympathy from onlookers and from the judge. Again, nasty.

Michael Strahan’s Divorce and Custody Case began in 2006 when he divorced his second wife and mother of his two daughters – Jean Muggli. A young woman from North Dakota, Jean and Michael married in 1999. Their two beautiful twin daughters Sophia and Isabella were the best things that happened in the marriage but clearly these two girls were not enough to keep the marriage from coming apart at the seams.

Michael who cohosts ABC’s Good morning America with Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos, was ordered to pay Jean Muggli $15.3 million in a divorce settlement as well as $18,000 per month child support. This amount, according to the post, was reduced to $13,000 when Michael left the NFL in 2008. At the time a parenting order was put in place.

The reason that Michael Strahan’s Divorce and Custody Case is back in the news is because he is accusing his ex wife of violating the custody and parenting order. First, there is an allegation that she refused to give the children their passports so that they could go to Portugal and Croatia with him. But second, he is alleging, according to the Post that she is abusing the teenage twins and is refusing to take them to therapy sessions as ordered by the court. Now, he wants custody of the girls and he wants them to be taken from his ex’s North Carolina country equestrian compound and moved to his palatial apartment in Manhattan – where they are slated to begin an expensive private school in the Fall.

Some of the allegations that have been flung around in this proceeding sound pretty shady, and neither Michael Strahan nor Jean Muggli were perfect people in this situation, but using the word “battered” to describe this man’s financial dealings is just low in my view.